


O! What are you seeking, And where are you making?

by lynndyre



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Second Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24583117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: Celebrimbor is captured.  Narvi means to get him back.
Relationships: Celebrimbor/Narvi, background Celeborn/Galadriel
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	O! What are you seeking, And where are you making?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Calantian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calantian/gifts).



> For the purposes of this fic, I'm placing Narvi's lifetime about a thousand years later in the Second Age than it likely occurred in canon, and moving him from the time of Durin II to Durin III.

Eregion falls at the height of summer. The sun beats down, unfeeling, on the halls, the forges, the fallen. 

It was not a swift thing, defeat. The elven defenders were worn from days upon days of broken rest in the polluted sunshine, waiting for the attacks that came intermittently, always when least expected. In the dusk, in the moonlight, or in the unnatural darkness that swirled upwards to block out the stars. And then as the Enemy grew stronger even the reeking humid days were not safe, for under Sauron's command the orcs would fight even in daylight, and his clouds rose up to cover their rabid charges. The daylight fights were unpredictable, as driven by fear and desperation, the enemy would fight all the harder. 

On the day the city fell, Celebrimbor watched one of his smiths, Verion, die with orcish fangs buried in his throat, shaken like a rabbit in the teeth of a cur. His last work had been an unfinished chandelier, a masterpiece of cascading amethyst and alexandrite and aquamarine, to spill like shadowed water under the light.

Eregion's halls are not lit by elven lights, now. The orcs have smashed their lamps, destroying the reflections of starlight, the memory of older illuminations contained within. They use only fire, heedless of the summer heat. And for a city of smiths, filled with forges and stocked well with charcoal and sundry fuels to keep them lit, the orcs have found many other things to burn.

The flight of Vingilot against the dragons of Morgoth, the largest tapestry to hang in the Weaver's Hall, is fed in tattered pieces into the fire in front of Celebrimbor, fuel to the brands that were heated, conspicuous in their glow, to coerce his cooperation.

Sauron has many persuasions. 

His voice- almost Celebrimbor would think that the first coercion. But Celebrimbor was struck by him even before he spoke, drawn in, like a lodestone, Sauron's very presence aligning others to itself like a thousand compass needles pointing to ruin.

Once, all had been attraction, the thrill of Annatar's presence, of his ideas. Celebrimbor had desired, deeply, to work with him. Naive. Should he feel sorry for, or despise his younger self? Now there is no immature longing, no friendly desire, however comely a shape Sauron the deciever has made for himself. 

There is beauty, but it is the beauty of the inside of the forge, cruel beyond the reach of any true fire. 

Sauron reaches. And Celebrimbor burns.

***

Narvi, Master Stonemason of Khazad-dum, armours himself to petition his king with small beard-clasps of pink morganite set in thin gold. They were made when all the hairs of his beard were full chestnut, but they still shine even where Narvi is now streaked with silver. The one who made them is the one Narvi seeks to save.

It is a small audience, only Durin, the Third of that name, and some few of his close council. And two elves. Galadriel, who had fled Eregion with her daughter only two years before, passing through their halls to reach Lothlorien, is now returned in the company of that country's Prince Amroth. 

The elves are come to try to aid their fellows, both the survivors of Eregion and those who remain of Elrond Halfelven's troops from Lindon - from whence no further aid can now reach. Durin the king is gentle in his refusals to Amroth's plans, but he will offer no further efforts towards the recapture of Eregion. The city is lost beyond recovering, and indefensible now as Sauron's troops boil upwards from the south like ants.

But Durin urges Narvi to lay his proposal before the elves. The king has likewise refused to send dwarven troops forth on a reckless elven rescue, but Galadriel's already shining eyes sharpen like a hawk at Narvi's plan, simple as it is.

Some of those who fled Eregion departed early, as Galadriel and her daughter Celebrian. But many more refused to leave their homes until the Enemy was before their gates, and only escaped the city at all because of Celebrimbor's compulsive long-ingrained need to plan a way out. And for a secret tunnel, built to be unknown to the city above and undetectable where it let out far beyond the city walls, Celebrimbor had asked the aid of a friend, one with the knowledge and skill to build hidden doors, and secret means of egress.

And so Narvi, who had built it, was the only being in Eriador who could open the secret doorway from the outside. And perhaps, if he had aid, rescue Celebrimbor from his prisonment within his own city.

Never before now has Narvi had reason for close speech with Galadriel, though all the dwarves who worked with Eregion's smiths knew of her, and of her husband, the more prosaic counter to Celebrimbor's artistic leadership. Standing as the focus of her entire attention is difficult, and Narvi feels stripped bare- but there is little indeed at the core of himself that Narvi has ever held shame for. 

When Galadriel nods her head, Narvi knows that whatever else, she and Narvi both are seeking to send aid to the elves they love.

Khazad-dum's main doors remain closed, but Narvi himself is granted his king's permission to depart, and he gains an escort of silvan elves to see him to Elrond's camp, north of the captured city. Galadriel also gifts him a flask of elven drink, a restorative cordial of arcane distillation called miruvor, and a cloak to match those of Amroth's elves, that seems to blur with concealment.

Life within Khazad-dum has done much to conceal the seasons. Though news comes, and days pass, worries mount- still when last Narvi trod upon living grass it was spring, and he and Celebrimbor had spoken of metal, of stone, neither heeding the snow-melt or the burgeoning flowers. Now, stepping forth, the air tastes strange outside the west door. Sharp and fresh, after long within, but there is a darker taint on the wind, and, distant, the fires that send their smoke beyond Eregion's walls are not the clean blaze of the forges.

At the edge of the Lindon camp, Celeborn himself is the one to bring them past the sentries. He asks few questions - perhaps Galadriel alerted him to their coming, though Narvi knows not how - only draws Narvi with him to the centermost tent. 

Elrond Peredhel, second in power to the High King, does not look half-elven. He looks much like any Noldorin elf, dark of hair and fair of face. And he looks frustrated. Perversely, Narvi relaxes. Negotiating a successful working plan with frustrated elves- Narvi has been keeping order on joint building sites for more than a hundred years. 

He plants his feet and offers Lord Elrond his bow.

***

Elrond holds the moment and weighs it. Narvi the dwarf's motives are personal, but he comes with the full backing not just of King Durin but also the Lady Galadriel. Further there are those who know him from within Eregion, elves he has worked alongside who vouch for his character, and for his closeness with Celebrimbor. Rather than a detriment, personal motives may lend greater drive and purpose. And if his information is correct, they may indeed have a way to retrieve Celebrimbor from the Enemy.

Whatever Elrond may wish, they are drawing near the natural end of this campaign. Sauron's reinforcements threaten from the south. There are clouds of evil birds reported far off, with worser creatures in their train, and though numbers are uncertain, things are already heavily weighted in the Enemy's favour. Lindon has already sent whom they could in the form of Elrond and all he brought with him, and in these small two years Elrond has counted every loss from that finite number. There is hope of aid from Numenor, but no certainty of it, and with autumn closing in, and winter to follow, the shortening days and lengthening nights will only favor the Enemy and his legions. Eregion must be considered lost with no present hope of regaining the territory in their current standoff- and no possibility, with their current strength, of holding it even could it be retaken.

Elrond must measure the cost of the offensive, of the distraction that will be needed to allow Narvi to approach the city. There will be losses. Yet Celebrimbor, for the knowledge he carries, and the disposition of every existing ring of power, must weigh heavy in this judgement. Perhaps it is moot. Perhaps Sauron has taken already the answers he seeks. But Elrond was there when Celebrimbor came to Lindon, was beside his king when Celebrimbor pressed that small pouch of two rings, blue stone and red, into Gil-Galad's keeping.

Celebrimbor will hold out against the Enemy, if he can. And Elrond cannot, if there is a chance, fail to make the attempt. Better to make this their final sortie. If they are able to regain Celebrimbor, that will be a victory for morale and for information both. 

Elrond will, truthfully, be glad to leave Hollin. He holds another place in his thoughts now. A valley to the north, where the landscape strongly favors concealment and defense. Better able to hold, for as long as they may need it to. A place Elrond found only by the light of his father's ship, shining down on the night of the new moon, and piercing a crack between the rocks of the open plain, shining still, and pointed, until he followed the light and sought out it's destination, and thence a hidden deer path down towards the river below, fed by a hundred small waterfalls and green and growing even in the yellow-brown summer above. This hidden valley holds their more permanent camp, where Elrond has made his hospital, and a refuge for Eregion's survivors who could not fight.

Soon.

Eregion's and Lindon's lords and captains make a small circle now, but a tested one. They plan.

When it comes to choose who will accompany Narvi within the city itself, Elrond pauses. An elf of Eregion- but Elrond is loathe to send any back. It has not the feeling of what is needed. He considers a silvan elf, perhaps one of Amroth's sending, or of the grey elves who joined his own companies, gifted in concealment. In the end he shakes his head, and chooses by visceral certainty rather than logic.

"Glorfindel. Glorfindel will go."

***

Narvi is no longer young, and he is not a dwarf given to stealth. He moves when the elf tells him to move, and stays when the elf gestures to stay. This one has a name full of gold, and came with the troops from Lindon, but he is not like to them in speech, nor like the silvan elves on the Lorien side of the mountains. 

Narvi pulls the elven fabric further forward, hooding his face. It does not block the sides of his vision, the way he expects of a hood, and he twitches it forward again. Goldenhair -Lord Glorfindel- looks like he wants to laugh, but Narvi's glare only makes the dancing in his eyes even brighter. 

The hardest point is to reach the tunnel's exit door without alerting any of Eregion's invaders. On the way from Khazad-dum's holly doorway to the Lindon camp, Narvi and his escorts had simply given the city wide berth. The orc camps that had sprung up about Eregion are sprawling middens, but they cover great swathes of ground, and malice sharpens the eyes of their guards. 

The door itself is nothing but an outcropping of rock in the already rocky hills of Hollin, invisible since it shut behind the last wave of the city's refugees. The doorway is not exposed, but the surrounding land, once forested, is now patchy and bare where the orcs have broken and hacked down many of the trees. Ahead of them, the woodelves move invisible to Narvi's eyes, and it is their signals Lord Glorfindel relays, keeping them clear of the enemy's lines of sight.

It takes Narvi himself to find the doorway, to speak words to it that Celebrimbor chose. It slips back into the recessed rock as smooth as butter, and they are inside, and the door closes behind them.

The tunnel is empty of all but two lamps, one of them broken, but the elven lord gives over the lead to Narvi with easy grace, and Narvi knows the path his own hands helped to shape. They are deep beneath the earth, somewhere at the level of the outer walls of the city, when Narvi feels the faint vibrations of battle through the stone around them. Their distraction has begun.

Within the city the escape tunnel is fed by several branches. Narvi follows the most familiar, to a doorway that opens behind a tapestry, where the stone is ready to open almost at his touch. This doorway, their doorway should open into the light of elf-lanterns and the smell of stale cake, like those Celebrimbor loved and so often forgot to actually eat in his distraction over some new idea. Instead the air itself is stale, the passage dark, and Celebrimbor's rooms are torn apart.

Narvi knows he makes a sound then, but the elf doesn't chide him for it. Glorfindel only touches his arm, steady and unflinching. For all the news, for all the planning, this is Celebrimbor's home, and Narvi is standing where the Enemy has stood, within it.

"Where?"

"If he is in the dungeons, then beneath the halls to the far west. But Sauron loved the forges, and they are just across the courtyard. If he is in neither place-

Narvi knows the city, and Glorfindel's elf ears catch the sound of any approach, but luck is with them also, as they press back behind a broken doorway in the lower Guild Hall, and the orcs pass within a foot of Glorfindel's cloaked shoulder.

"I'm telling you, it stinks of elves in here. Great big ones."

"Of course it does, you maggot! It's an elf city!"

There is a sound of scuffling, and muffled blows in the hallway, and the footsteps retreat. Narvi gives up then, and laughs, as silently as he may, the elf lord's smile bright and rueful beside him.

Things are easier after that. The remaining orcs are pulled away to the walls, and the outer battle, and Narvi and his companion have found their stride. It is at the forges beside the Guild Hall that they find their objective. 

Celebrimbor, Narvi's beautiful, stupid, eternal friend, looks worn older now than Narvi feels, black hair a mess all about him, and with his wrists chained back across the center anvil in the middle of his workspace.

He does not react to their coming. His eyes are half-lidded, but they do not focus on Narvi's face, nor does he stir until the tide of distant battle rises. Orc voices raise themselves in nasty discordant sounds somewhere beyond the courtyard and Celebrimbor twitches under Narvi's hands. 

"Silverfist. wake up." Still he will not respond, not to the hand on his face, nor the voice in front of him.

Glorfindel kneels beside them. "Can you release the shackles? Silently?"

"Of course."

Glorfindel moves, hands gentle, to take Celebrimbor's face from Narvi's hands. "Do that. I will reach him."

The manacles are not elf-make, the iron of them is rough and the metal uneven. The locking mechanism sticks against dried blood that has accumulated between the teeth. Narvi twists, forearms cording with the force of his anger. The locks scrape, but fall open without a clang onto the fold of elf-cloak beneath them.

Celebrimbor's hands make him want to weep. Or hurt.

Lord Glorfindel looks on the edge of weeping also, even as he stares into Celebrimbor's eyes. Narvi has seen elves glow, watched Celebrimbor's skin shine under the moonlight like Ithildin was in his blood, but not like this. Whatever Lord Glorfindel does, to reach him, the air is singing with it, like a tuning fork struck high out of hearing. Thought magic? He has heard it of the elves, but never witnessed it.

Glorfindel wispers something Narvi cannot catch, though it sounds more High-elf than Sindarin, but when he pulls back, Celebrimbor is blinking. Aware.

***

Celebrimbor came to consciousness unwilling. Awareness means questioning, means pain, means the humiliation of the Enemy of all talking from the face one he'd trusted as a friend. Awareness means failure. 

Failure to defend his city. Failure to defend his people. Failure to spot Annatar for what he was, when others had known to turn him away. 

Failure to stand up under torture. He had lost another of the Nine only today- if today it still was- and soon he would be hurt until he lost even more. 

He would continue to fail. Sauron knew it. Celebrimbor knew it.

Failure even to die, rather than endure and continue to fail.

And so Celebrimbor fought against waking, against the hands on his face- not the orcish grip of his captors, but not Sauron's strong, smooth-skinned fingers, with their gouging nails and all their awful instruments.

If he drifted, and did not wake, Celebrimbor could almost imagine the hands on him were dwarvish.

Soon enough the rough, dwarflike hands retreat, and the smooth touch that replaces them makes him shiver despite himself, and he flinched outright at the touch against his spirit

but there was no pain?

And when he finally, half-curious, brings his eyes to focus, the face that looks at him is not Annatar at all, and the bright, blue-tourmaline eyes are full of a light Celebrimbor has not seen since before the sun. 

Air fills his lungs too fast, and his head spins with it, but the light of Aman does not vanish, and his hands above him are being unbound.

The dead lord- the Golden Flower? makes no sense, here and now and in his broken workshop, but his hands fall free and are caught when his shoulders fail to obey him- caught in Narvi's rough, calloused hands that he has known over every inch of him, and knew he would never feel again.

His voice will not obey, but he feels the other elf's awareness when he recognises Narvi, feels the genuine gladness he sends, and the healing-starlight-joy that comes with it is incomprehensible.

He reaches for Narvi with clumsy fingers, and Narvi comes, leaning close to press their faces together, temple to temple, until Celebrimbor can breathe him in.

But Celebrimbor cannot walk, and a dwarf, however hardy, cannot carry an elf over 6 feet tall with any degree of stealth. Celebrimbor in the end must submit to being slung hastily over Glorfindel's shoulder; the concealing cloaks pulled over all. Narvi feeds him as much of the miruvor as he can swallow, which is little enough, but it tastes of impossible hope, and Celebrimbor presses his lips to Narvi's stone-rough thumb where he holds the flask. He slides back into sleep less than halfway down the tunnel's protecting darkness, this time honest exhaustion rather than desperate escape.

***

Without the city, Elrond and Celeborn act to draw Sauron's attention. The Enemy will have been expecting attack to regain Eregion, though both sides know the elven forces are outmatched, and it will please him to think he has caught their plan- Elrond's main forces from Lindon against the main gates of Eregion, broken and indefensible as they are, while Celeborn takes the remainder of Eregion's troops and makes a feint for the east gate. 

It works. Sauron is glad to see them strive against his forces and fail, and his troops number high enough that there is no need for him to hold back. When Celeborn moves for the east wall, Sauron is there, rather than with the main force, having anticipated them. 

With the Enemy staring down on them from the walls where Celeborn first showed his daughter the wider world, with his twisted minions turning all to ruin- There is anger in Celeborn at Celebrimbor's choices, that have brought all of them here, as well as anger at his fate. But the city of both silver lords is broken, and Celeborn will save as many as he can. Celebrimbor included.

Sauron's will and magic strike the stones down around them when they near the wall. Halandir beside him pulls him free of the crumbling masonry, the blocked and fallen eastern gate, and he keeps his horse by wedded luck and skill, knees guiding the animal even as Eregion's burning walls blur before him with more than smoke.

He comes away winded, and bleeding, and furious.

***

Erestor fears he is watching a second leader fall. Celebrimbor he saw taken, from across the open square, falling beneath many bodies on the steps of the Guild Hall itself. Now he watches the dark thrust of Sauron's blade pierce Celeborn's armour, scoring the metal even as the Silvan lord twists away. But he does not go down, only staggers, and rights himself, though how long he may hold is doubtful- but a screeching horn wails out from the walls, and Sauron turns away, leaving a sudden void, and an anticlimax of sprawling, snarling lesser foes. Erestor dispatches them with ease, Celeborn's sword working beside him.

Erestor is not a warrior. He has been happy enough to organise, but never sought to be in charge, and for hundreds of years he has been active in Guild business while watching the interplay of Eregion's politics, Celebrimbor and the smiths, and Galadriel and Celeborn, the greater and lesser frustrations of artists versus the practicalities of running a city- usually in reasonable accord, but sometimes dissenting beyond all logic or patience. This is what Erestor knows.

Battle, this constant, losing, failing battle, this Erestor would rather have none of. He would rather keep notations of a thousand minutiae of metalworking supplies, calculate the likely yeild of a yeni of unpredictable crops, rather than stand among the dead field-bandaging sword wounds.

Halandir, who pulled Lord Celeborn back, is dead for it. He who had written gardening marginalia on half an official treatise, and told Erestor to just use it anyway- there is nothing there behind his grey eyes, and Celeborn is snarling to push away even still wounded.

Sauron is gone from the fray, from the walls, but whether he has discovered their attempted rescue or no is still uncertain. Then a howl from within the city sounds at almost the same moment as a clear, ringing horn- Elrond is calling the retreat. And Sauron knows he has lost his prisoner.

He does not let them go easily. Even as Celeborn remounts, heedless of the blood, and the elves rally to regroup and to answer Elrond's summons, the howl within the walls is echoed by the screeching calls of the orcs under his command, and they boil up from Eregion's foundations like black, horrible ants sprung from a kicked hill. 

The elven lines reform to fall back, Erestor splitting away at Celeborn's gesture to remain with the rearguard. In the far distance the night was shifting, the darkness to the south roiling strangely.

Then the cry went up, the first true sighting of reinforcements sent up from the pits of Mordor to answer Sauron's desire to crush all of Eregion into dust- the night was fading towards dawn and Sauron's creatures had come running on through the night- wearied perhaps from travel but not from long hours of battle the elves had endured, and eager to run still, and even more eager to kill.

Glorfindel draws up beside Erestor from out of the darkness, bright hair spilling out everywhere now the need for concealment has gone, and Erestor sucks in his breath at the figure before him on the black horse. The dwarf was behind, and Glorfindel carved a way easily through the elven ranks.

"We have him. If we can now get away."

For a moment Erestor truly thinks they will not. These new reinforcements are to fast, too few of the elves are mounted, and all are tired. But the dwarf is intent, watching where other heads have already turned - not the city, but beyond it, to the east!

From out the doors of Khazad-dum, two armies are come forth: King Durin III's dwarves, but elves also, leather-armoured, Silvan-fashion. Narvi is smiling, grimly satisfied and set. 

"The Lady Galadriel will not allow her husband to be overset."

Glorfindel's laughter shatters the tension of the night like bells, and Erestor shivers as he turns to keep track of the other elves of the rearguard. He chokes at Glorfindel's flippant salute to their allies, across the sea of orcs who wish all of them dead.

But the pursuit is broken, the greatest mass of those attacking is drawn away. And as soon as they are gone, Durin and Amroth's people will be able to pull back within the doors, and be safe.

They flee.

***

Narvi could not have retraced the path they take on their retreat. They go north, for the mountains remain ever to the east, but past the Redhorn Gate Narvi's knowledge of the land fades. He has no eye for landscapes, nor for judging one stretch of grassland or stand of trees from any other. And the elves do not pause, not for hours.

The elven horse, too large for Narvi but full well trained, runs beside and among its fellows with little urging or need for his direction- which is well, for Narvi's eyes are not on the ground before him, or the unheeded landscape, but only on the taller black horse beside him, and the slumped figure in Glorfindel's arms. Celebrimbor moves only with the motion of the horse, a cloth doll swung and discarded, and every mile the red droplets blown back and staining Glorfindel's grey breeches grow in number.

When finally the elves draw up, on the far slopes of the Hollin Ridge, it is in response to some signal Narvi does not see, and he must dance his mount in an awkward circle to draw close enough to reach for his friend. He dismounts poorly, but forces his legs steady enough to take Celebrimbor when Glorfindel lets him down. He is still warm, still alive, his brows furrow and then relax at Narvi's touch. 

Other elves close in about them. Some Narvi knows by sight, some he does not. All are seeking to reassure themselves of Celebrimbor's state, but Glorfindel lifts him up again and breaks a path through to where Lord Elrond is working among the healers.

Narvi watches the elf lord lay his hands over Celebrimbor's chest, over his broken hand, the burns, and blames the horse for the way his legs threaten to give out beneath him. Lord Glorfindel's forearm braces subtle and steady against his shoulder.

"He is in the most skilled hands in Middle Earth."

Narvi holds that thought fast.

***

For Elrond, the retreat from Eregion was a span of days that blurred together in sleeplessness and constant movement, punctuated only by the needs of differing hurts among the wounded, and the necessity to give direction to the army he still commanded. 

Celebrimbor was not the worst of the injured. He was burned, cut, full wounded, but the older hurts had been tended - though tended in such a way as to scar and cause further pain - for Sauron had intended to keep him alive against the need to wring further secrets from his body. The worst of it is in his thoughts, where Sauron has born down hard with all his twisted gifts. But Glorfindel wakes him from those dreams thrice over in the course of the next days of travel, and it grows easier and easier to break the spell. Narvi's touch he applies to help in like manner, and speaking softly into Celebrimbor's dreams, and he feels the healing take deeper root.

Celeborn is different. He is conscious, always, fighting upwards against the healing rest Elrond urges him to take. He is not so grievously wounded as Elrond first feared, being pierced more by the breaking of his own armour than by the full darkness of Sauron's weapon, but the wound is dark and fevered nonetheless. And it breaks their accustomed roles. Touching Celeborn to heal him requires constant, intimate contact that Elrond fears will strain the trust of their forced allyship, or create tension of obligation, but Celeborn is strangely level, more straightforward than many elves Elrond has worked with in the past.

In the end, the best healing Elrond can offer him is simply raw power, boosting the reach of his thought until it stretches back to within the cradle of the dwarves' mountain kingdom to touch those of the Lady Galadriel. After that, Celeborn is willing to sleep.

For all the thousands under his command, Elrond is glad of every one that he can save, and every one that he can bring home to his valley.

***

The final night of travel, they do not stop. As one being, the army is tired, and longs to reach home, whatever place that now may be. And their northward march is finally rewarded.

When Narvi steps below the level of Eriador's plains, it is into a different world. The valley is a wholly Elvish place, the air cool and wet with fresh green, the length of the valley strung with waterfalls until it seemed the very cliffs were crying. But there is also birdsong. It is growing lighter, false dawn brightening into approaching day. Narvi gives a thought to the closer warmth of Khazad-dum's halls, the smells of dwarven cooking that would have been long underway before now, the roar of active forges. But Erestor and others are lifting Celebrimbor down, and Glorfindel has taken the other, Celeborn, and Elrond keeps between them, hands always hovering close to both their bodies.

He made his choice when he made his petition before the king. And Narvi has never in his life been afraid to build something new.

***

Celebrimbor wakes to a sound like many fountains; the air on his skin cool, smelling of leaves and the turning season. There is pain, but there are also bandages instead of burns, and a warm gust of honey and herbs when he moves.

When he trusts his eyes to focus on the world, there is no Enemy waiting. There is only Narvi, and a writing slope; with graphite pencil on his hands and the bridge of his nose, where it matches the patchwork of grey in his beard.

Celebrimbor reaches, and Narvi is there.


End file.
